The late director Sydney Pollack's behind-the-scenes documentary about the recording of Aretha Franklin's best-selling album Amazing Grace finally sees the light of day more than four decades after the original footage was shot.

In January 1972, Aretha Franklin gave two
days of gospel performances at the New
Temple Missionary Baptist Church in
Watts, Los Angeles, recording what would
become her bestselling album, Amazing
Grace. The sessions were captured by a
film crew led by Sydney Pollack, but the
footage wound up shelved in a vault and
has remained one of the lost cinematic treasures
of twentieth-century music. Before
Pollack's death in 2008, he expressed a wish
for the film to be completed, and producer
Alan Elliott took it up with a team of supporters
as a passion project.

Amazing Grace lets the events unfold on
film without imposing present-day interviews.
It fits in the tradition of other concert
documentaries of the era, such as Monterey
Pop and Woodstock, yet it stands out for its
focus on African-American music (preceding
Wattstax, filmed later that year).

As the daughter of Detroit's prominent
Reverend C.L. Franklin, Aretha was deeply
immersed in gospel and grew up among the
leaders of the genre. Her father and other
gospel mentors can be spotted in the crowd
— as can Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts,
lingering in the back of the church. In his
book on Amazing Grace for the notable
33 1/3 series, author Aaron Cohen calls the
album "a milestone because of Franklin's
call-and-response with her collaborators."
Leading the musicians is Reverend James
Cleveland, backed by the legendary Atlantic
Records rhythm section and the Southern
California Community Choir. Watching
their interactions is revelatory for both
gospel aficionados and outsiders. To paraphrase
the title song: what once was lost,
now is found.